Since publication of the following article, DigitalGlobe has rejected GeoEYE’s offer. Read the story here.

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Article source: GeoEYE

May 5, 2012 — HERNDON, Va. — GeoEye, Inc. (NASDAQ: GEOY), a leading source of geospatial information and insight, today announced that it is proposing to acquire DigitalGlobe, Inc. (NYSE: DGI).

The combined company would create the world’s largest fleet of high resolution commercial imagery satellites. The new company would be well-positioned to meet the evolving needs of the U.S. government and other customers in this fiscally constrained environment. We will also continue to invest in new information, analytic services and the most technologically advanced commercial satellites for government and commercial customers around the world.

May 01, 2012 –Exelis Visual Information Solutions proudly announces the release of ENVI 5, the next generation of ENVI, the company’s industry-leading image analysis software which is used across industries by professionals who want to uncover hidden information in geospatial imagery in order to make better, more informed decisions. ENVI 5 introduces imagery consumers to an innovative and streamlined user process for their image analysis workflow, making complex analysis tasks easier. Designed to make image analysis accessible to users of virtually any experience level, ENVI 5 provides:

An intuitive, easy-to-navigate interface.

A highly-efficient display for large datasets.

New automated processes for several popular analysis tasks.

A flexible application programming interface for customizing the software to unique user needs.

Canalys released its detailed smart phone shipment estimates by country for Q1 2012. Total shipments worldwide grew 45% year on year to 146 million units, but significant country and regional differences were apparent. Shipments in the US rose just 5% year-on-year, in marked contrast to the 81% growth seen across the Asia Pacific region. Shipments in China doubled and overtook those in the US for the first time. In Q1, China represented 22% of global smart phone shipments, while the US accounted for 16%. A year earlier these figures were the other way around. Of the top 10 countries for smart phones, half are now in the Asia Pacific region.

According to Rayonier New Zealand’s Philip Elworthy, the new Cable Harvesting Planning Solution (CHPS) will help foresters in New Zealand and possibly around the world, to harvest logs from very steep plantations more efficiently. This announcement was made to delegates at a forestry geographic information systems conference organised by Scion in Rotorua.

Some steep terrain harvesting was already taking place in New Zealand, but most of this planting occurred in the early 1990s and would be ready for harvest in the next five to 10 years, creating “huge challenges” for harvest planners, said Elworthy.

On this type of land, this is generally done by cable harvesting, where felled trees are lifted on cables to a central hauler that can be cost effectively reached by trucks. CHPS combines planning software with Esri ArcGIS software to allow planners to model a plantation and configure the most effective locations in which to position the hauler and cables for least environmental impact.
CHPS has been developed by Rayonier, Geographic Business Solutions (GBS) and Atlas Technology, with input from various industry group, including Rotorua’s Scion crown research institute. It will be presented in the United States next month at a conference organised by Esri.

In the geospatial sector, small and medium sized enterprises (SME) are the backbone of innovation, creating specialized offerings that have made the industry what it is today. Whether providing a solution that integrates into a larger organization’s offering, or creating new markets with completely unique products, it is safe to say that SMEs are one of the key reasons we have had such tremendous growth over the past decade.

I was recently asked to offer comment for an article on the value of SMEs in Geospatial World Magazine, and wanted to use this post as a platform to further elaborate on this topic.

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